Wow, I can't believe I ended up watching this, but I saw BluWacky's blogging on it and he said it was hilarious and unexpected (or something to that effect) - so I thought, why not just get the damn thing.
Gosh, did this air on April Fool's? IT would have fit the theme perfectly!
I am so surprised by the way they REALLY got the shitty-amateur-video thing across, it had me laughing throughout! A loooong time since a moe show has made me laugh... The lousy acting, the forgetting of lines, the teachers (that was hilarious!), the cat that almost fell off (I LOVE that cat, I can't wait to see more of it
), and... the reeeeheeaallly bad special effects
One of my favourite bits was the whole segment when Yuki was going to do something to Itsuki and then Mikuru appears and bumps into the pillar.... and then Yuki goes off, and while she's going off someone's closing a car door - that was brilliant! It really felt quite funny.
It's really great how they actually showed this in the anime, I haven't read the book but I actually want to watch at least one more episode to see wth this is about (and the general outline seems not bad, at least it's not harem... I hope)
Which is a great achievement, when's the last time I've enjoyed this type of show?!
And kj1980's right about how other sakuga studios should learn a bit from Kyoto - especially J.C. Staff! Look how much better the same illustrator's designs look here compared to Shana (well, I think they look much better-drawn here)
It may not be innovative animation ala Studio 4C and Satelight, but the key is that the animators seem to care about what they're doing and really put in effort to make it look like it should... GJ staff.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I liked the narration - halfway through: "Th-wait, you mean there's still another half to this?!" and earlier "Normally he'd call an ambulance or ask a bystander for help, but this young man is instead carrying this unconscious girl away like a princess in his arms, where does he think he's taking her, the bastard."
I also really liked the bit where Mikuru's classmates acted as zombies... "Sorry, Mikuru, but we've been, uh, kind of zombified, so..."
I don't know how much longer I'll watch it as I think at some point I'll start demanding more reality (I wonder if real high school students in Japan would do this... well, I wouldn't know), but hey, I stuck through all of Air, I'm sure I can stick through this...
if its done well.